Andrea Rediske knew her special-needs son had no business taking standardized tests.

He was born with brain damage. He suffers from cerebral palsy and is legally blind.

Just teaching Ethan to say "yes" or "no" — or even keep his gaze focused — was an accomplishment.

So the idea of asking this 10-year-old to solve math equations on an FCAT test seemed ridiculous.

But this is Florida — where the standardized test is king.

So the state made Ethan take it anyway. He spent six hours over the course of two weeks being led through a test.

And then he was asked about eating a peach.

That was the question that set Andrea on fire.

Ethan, after all, can't eat peaches. Or any fruit. Or food at all.

He gets his food through a tube.

"He doesn't know what a peach tastes like," she said. "He will never know what a peach tastes like. Or an apple. Or bananas. It's completely irrelevant to his life."

And so Andrea is on year three of her crusade against standardized testing for the profoundly disabled.

It is a war she shouldn't have to wage. One more battle in the lives of families of the severely disabled — people for whom so many everyday things already are battles.

Ethan, after all, isn't the only kid in this situation. Orange County School Board member Rick Roach said he was incensed to learn about another local child — 9-year-old Michael, born without much more than a brain stem — who was made to take the same standardized test.

"He's blind. And they're showing him pictures of a giraffe, a monkey and an elephant — and asking him which one is the monkey," Roach said. "I'm watching all this and just about to lose my mind."

I reached out to the state to ask why kids with profound disabilities were required to take Florida Alternative Assessments — or FAAs, which are the FCAT equivalent for special-needs kids.

The response was jaw-dropping in its bureaucratic tone-deafness.

"These summative assessments used in Florida are one way to measure student mastery of these standards," came the email response from a spokeswoman.

Mastery of the standards?

I'm talking about a blind kid being asked to identify a monkey. And the response I get is that the state is trying to measure his "mastery of these standards"?

This is the problem with public education in this state.

We have become so test-obsessed that we substitute standardized exams for common sense.

I believe in kids taking tests.

Let me say that again: I believe in standardized tests.

What I don't believe is that they should be the be-all and end-all yardstick for everything from calculus teachers to kids such as Ethan.

I don't think my own son should have nine weeks of science classes canceled just so fearful teachers can run through FCAT math drills.

I don't think mothers such as Andrea Rediske should have to march on Tallahassee or plead with local school officials for waivers so Ethan won't spend six hours on a test he can't complete.

And I darn sure don't believe special-needs teachers —some of society's most underappreciated workers —should have their "merit pay" based on how well kids such as Ethan and Michael do on tests they are incapable of taking.

Yeah, that happens.

Test-obsessed teaching doesn't help anyone — whether it's an AP English student or a homebound kid who celebrates the day he can identify the color red.

Tests have a purpose. You take them. You measure. You make changes. You move on. And administrators and principals who are in the classrooms should evaluate success and failure.

There can be some solid cases made for testing some special-needs students. If a test reveals amazing improvement in a kid in Jacksonville, for example, we may want to see whether that's the result of a teaching method that we can duplicate in Key West.

In fact, Mary Jane Tappen, a deputy chancellor for curriculum with the Florida Department of Education, makes the case that testing proves the state cares.

"We have come so far," Tappen said, from the days when society warehoused the disabled. "We want to keep these students as alive and enriched as possible."

Tappen also notes testing is federal law.

But with kids such as Ethan, the test is a farce. Andrea said Ethan's "answers" were determined by his gaze. And because his gaze was generally focused in the same direction, his teacher could, in theory, choose to give him the right answer whenever she wanted.

The state will grant waivers. But that process is flawed.

For starters, each exemption must be approved by the state education commission. Talk about top-down government — in a state where more than 20,000 students take these alternative tests.

Plus, one-size-fits-all tests for kids dealing with everything from vision impairment to severe autism is nonsensical. These are kids who are, by definition, "special needs." And that's where the fallacy of broad-based bureaucratic policies crumbles in the face of individual realities.

Roach, along with state Rep. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando, is trying to make that waiver process easier.

In the meantime, moms such as Rediske will continue trying to tell Ethan's story — the story of a little boy who likes music and the sound of women's voices. A boy who smiles when bubbles land on his arm.

"As a parent of a disabled child, I spend my life keeping him alive," Andrea said. "We have so many battles to fight. And at the end of the day, I am simply out of energy to keep on fighting them."